They ranked the hospitals based on the percentage of patients who either died or stayed longer than expected after being operated on for things like knee replacement or angioplasty.

"This will give an indication if the patient either died or stayed longer than expected for their procedure that suggested something went wrong," Doris Peter, associate director of Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center, said.

The hospitals that scored the best are some of the least well-known, like Oklahoma Heart Hospital, Enlow Medical Center in California and the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.

Meanwhile, some of the country's most prestigious medical centers came in lower than you might expect.

"The most important finding is that big name hospitals don't always perform better than your name hospitals that you don't recognize," Peters said.

Critics say the findings are misleading because the hospitals that were rated poorly often take on the most challenging cases. That would, through no fault of their own, result in a greater number of complications.

Lorie Johnson

CBN News Medical Reporter

Lorie Johnson reports on the latest information about health and wellness. Since medicine is constantly changing, she makes sure CBN News viewers are up-to-date on what they need to know in order to live a healthy life. Follow Lorie on Twitter @LorieCBN and "like" her at Facebook.com/LorieJohnsonCBN.